Google Street View CSI: The thieves, gangsters and killers who were brought to justice after getting photographed by the tech giant’s camera cars
A Google Street View camera, which captures images from 360 degrees, may have helped solve a grisly village love triangle murder in Spain.
Astonishing pictures, captured in the tiny hamlet of Tajueco, show a man in jeans stooped over a red car with a large white sack lying in the trunk.
A second set of images show a man in a similar outfit trundling a wheelbarrow down a hill carrying what appears to be a white bag – just yards from where the car was parked.
Spanish cops say the initial car pictures may have helped crack open the case of a missing Cuban man, only referred to by his initials JLPO, who is believed to have been killed and dismembered by his wife and her affair partner after he vanished last year.
Investigators said it was the Google Street View photos that helped them shift focus to the victim’s wife and her new partner, identified as Manuel Isla Gallardo, before wiretaps revealed their involvement in JLPO’s sudden disappearance.
After the extraordinary pictures provided a lead for officers in Spain, here are some other cases that were aided by breakthroughs on Google Street View.
The photo shows a man loading what appears to be a body bag into the boot of a red car, local media reports
A frame captured by the Google camera car shows a person dressed in dark clothing pushing a wheelbarrow carrying a large white package
Mafia killer found
Italian mafia fugitive Gioacchino Gammino, who used to be one of Italy‘s most wanted mobsters, was caught in December 2021 after 20 years on the run when detectives spotted him on a Google Street View picture taken in Spain.
Gammino, a convicted murderer, fled from a prison in Rome in 2002 and had been living under the radar in Galapagar, a town north of Madrid, since.
The 63-year-old had changed his name, got married, worked as a chef and even opened a fruit and vegetable shop called El Huerto de Manu, which translates to Manu’s Garden.
Gammino, who belonged to a mafia clan in Agrigento, Sicily, was found guilty of murdering a passerby in Campobello di Licata after mistaking him for a mafioso in 1989.
After he was charged, the mafioso went on the run, but was arrested in Barcelona in 1998.
He was extradited back to Italy and sent to prison, but pulled off another daring escape in 2002.
A film was being shot in the Rebibbia prison at the time and he managed to walk out to his freedom after he was confused for a prisoner’s relative. Some believe an undercover mafia member in uniform may have helped his escape.
While investigators managed to trace him to Spain, they were only able to pinpoint down his precise location thanks to a Google Street View image of Gammino outside his shop.
Italian mafia fugitive Gioacchino Gammino, who used to be one of Italy’s most wanted mobsters, was caught in late 2021 after 20 years on the run when detectives spotted him on a Google Street View picture taken in Spain (pictured right, next to his shop)
This is an undated picture of mafioso Gioacchino Gammino
The 63-year-old had changed his name, worked as a chef and opened a fruit and vegetable shop
The picture shows two men, one of whom closely resembled Gammino.
When police noticed the similarities between Gammino and the shop owner, they looked at other listings in the area and came across one for a restaurant called La Cocina de Manu, which translates to Manu’s Kitchen.
On the restaurant’s Facebook page, they then discovered a picture of Gammino dressed in a chef’s uniform, with a recognisable scar on the left side of his chin, according to the Guardian.
Pervert caught in the act
Pervert Benjamin Frederick Moran was caught in the act by a Google Street View camera in Australia, after he reportedly terrorised his neighbours by masturbating in the street.
The 49-year-old man was charged with dozens of counts of indecent acts in January 2019, four years after a woman first filed an official complaint about his behaviour.
The serial masturbator, as he was dubbed by Australian media, frequented one street in Windsor, Brisbane, so often that he was photographed by the Google Street View Car in 2017.
It is understood detectives were able to use that Google Street View image, which showed him standing near a house, to uncover his identity after a string of complaints.
Officers said the man, who was identified as Moran thanks to the Street View picture, was reported multiple times by women who saw him perform the indecent acts in public.
Pervert Benjamin Frederick Moran was caught in the act by a Google Street View camera in Australia, after he reportedly terrorised his neighbours by masturbating in the street
Moran (pictured), a security guard, was handed a six-month suspended prison sentence for the 33 indecents act he admitted to committing between January 2015 and January 2019
Moran, a security guard, was handed a six-month suspended prison sentence for the 33 indecents act he admitted to committing between January 2015 and January 2019.
He posed on footpaths, hid behind bushes or sat in his van half or fully naked and masturbated as women passed by or stood at bus stops on streets, local media reports.
To avoid detection, Moran reportedly carried a change of clothes, removed stickers related to his business from his car and wore a hat as well as glasses when he committed the indecent acts.
Moran reportedly enjoyed the thrill of pleasuring himself in front of unsuspecting women in public.
Drugs gang
A gang of drug dealers was caught in Brooklyn, New York, in 2010 after they were photographed at work by the Google Street View car.
The gang members were selling heroin and marijuana outside a grocery store in Brooklyn, New York, when the Google driver went past and inadvertently took their picture.
The street corner where they worked was then put under surveillance and after watching them ply their trade police made seven arrests, charging the suspects with multiple counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance.
The men in the Google photo were identified as Shaundell Dade in the coat, Jamel Pringle to his right and Jonathan Paulino. All of them were arrested at the time.
Police began their operation after residents complained that their neighbourhood had been turned into an open-air drugs market by the gang.
The men in the Google photo were identified as Shaundell Dade in the coat, Jamel Pringle to his right and Jonathan Paulino. All of them were arrested at the time
Another angle on Street View shows a fourth man standing with the gang members
The situation was so bad that one grocery store owner closed his shop between 7am and 11am because ‘it was serving as a sanctuary for drug dealers’, according to local media.
On a video taken by undercover officers using handheld cameras, the gang members were seen putting heroin into a magnetic box which was hidden in front of the Neighbourhood Grocery store without the owner’s knowledge.
Officers made 20 drug purchases inside and outside the store including $10 bags of heroin with brand names like ‘KFC’ and ‘Fed Ex’.
Muggers pounce on teenage victim
Dutch police arrested two brothers on robbery charges in June 2009 after their victim spotted a picture of them following him on Google Street View.
The boy, then 14, was mugged in September 2008 after two men dragged him of his bike in Groningen, 110 miles north-east of Amsterdam.
His attackers got away with his bike, around £140 and his phone, with police being unable to track down the suspects at first.
This was until the teenage boy contacted officers six months after the bike theft with what he believed to be an image of himself and the two men he found on Google Street View.
Dutch police arrested two brothers on robbery charges in June 2009 after their victim spotted a picture of them following him on Google Street View
Officers got in touch with Google for the original picture because the people’s faces were blurred.
The company complied, and a robbery squad detective immediately recognised one of the brothers, who were not named by Dutch media.
Paul Eidanus, a police spokesman in the town of Groningen, said at the time that he believed the case was the first time Street View images had been used in a Dutch criminal investigation.
‘For us, it is unique,’ he said. ‘This photo could provide an important contribution to solving a crime.’
Caravan theft
A Google Street View image also helped British officers to make an arrest in 2012 in the unsolved 2009 theft of David and Rebecca Soanes’ caravan after their then 11-year-old son spotted a potential suspect on the street-level imaging site.
The picture shows a mystery figure lurking on the family’s driveway at about the time the white Abbey Aventura holiday vehicle vanished.
Parents David and Rebecca Soanes hoped for a breakthrough after their son Reuben stumbled across the image in March 2010 while he and his school friends surfed Street View to find pictures of their homes.
They immediately informed police probing the theft in Linton, Derbyshire, but much to their frustration Google initially refused a request to un-blur the number plate on the suspect’s 4×4 – making it far harder to trace him.
The internet giant finally released the unblurred images in the beginning of 2011 – but by then the car had been sold on.
But then in August 2012, officers finally arrested a man, then aged 49, at a service station on the M6 outside Coventry, using information gleaned from the Street View image.
A Google Street View image also helped British officers to make an arrest in 2012 in the unsolved 2009 theft of David and Rebecca Soanes’ caravan after their then 11-year-old son spotted a potential suspect on the imaging site
Parents David and Rebecca Soanes hoped for a breakthrough after their son Reuben stumbled across the image in March 2010 while he and his school friends surfed Street View to find pictures of their homes (the family is pictured above in 2012)
The picture shows a mystery figure lurking on the family’s driveway at about the time the white Abbey Aventura holiday vehicle (pictured) vanished
The theft happened after Mr Soanes left the family home for just one hour in June 2009.
He said: ‘It was alarmed, was wheel-clamped and was positioned so that a number of people would have had to move it to get it off the drive – I thought it was secure.’
About his son discovering the suspect outside their home, Mr Soanes said: ‘Reuben came home and told us what he’d seen.
‘We all had a look and you could tell it must have been the day that the theft happened – we had never seen that man or his car before.’
Shoplifter snared
Shoplifter Tammy McIvor was caught and then prosecuted in 2016 for stealing £60 of washing-up goods after she was photographed fleeing a store on Google Street View.
McIvor can be seen in the pictures running from discount store Savers in the Middlesbrough with a member of staff chasing her.
Images of the robbery were stumbled across by IT worker Peter Darby who saw McIvor sprinting out of the North Yorkshire shop while looking through the town online on the app.
She was pictured by the camera which had been taking shots in the street, exiting from the store with her stolen goods in a Sports Direct carrier bag.
Store bosses were able to identify the 38-year-old from the Google Street View stills.
Although, as per Google policy, her face was blurred they were able to identify her from her distinctive white top she was wearing. She wore the same outfit when she was arrested.
Shoplifter Tammy McIvor was caught and then prosecuted in 2016 for stealing £60 of washing-up goods after she was photographed fleeing a store on Google Street View
A staff member was pictured running out of the shop after McIvor
The images were filmed on June 19, 2016, in the town center at around 2.45pm.
McIvor pleaded guilty to theft and was given a year-long community order, which had a drug rehabilitation requirement.
The court heard at the time that McIvor had a long history of offending and drug abuse including a stint in prison in 2013 for burgling two properties in one night.
McIvor, who has been a heroin addict since 16, also took drugs in prison and used someone else’s name to get out of trouble.
Armed robbers captured after crime
Two robbers who broke into a house in Oklahoma City, US, and held the owner at gunpoint in July 2011 went undetected for three years until a Street View image emerged of them near the crime scene.
The two men were spotted moments before their crime by a Google Street View van that happened to be mapping out the quiet neighborhood.
The victim, who spoke to KFOR-TV, said she only learned of the breakthrough when a neighbour happened to look up her street on Google Maps and spotted the men.
The homeowner was held at gunpoint by the thugs for more than an hour while they ransacked her house.
Two robbers who broke into a house in Oklahoma City, US, and held the owner at gunpoint in July 2011 went undetected for three years until a Street View image emerged of them near the crime scene
The victim said that when her neighbor sent over the images from Google Street View in 2014, she instantly recognized the men as those who robbed her
‘They pulled a gun and held me for over an hour. There were times that I thought they would shoot me before they left,’ the homeowner said.
The woman said she happened to come home and walk in on the crooks looting her house. Instead of fleeing, they held her while they ransacked the home.
The victim said that when her neighbor sent over the images from Google Street View in 2014, she instantly recognized the men as those who robbed her.
Their faces are obscured – both by the grainy quality of the image and Google’s software that automatically blurs pedestrians.
Police in Oklahoma City launched an appeal for information on their identities, but had no luck in tracking the robbers down so far.
